In an industrial processing line which utilizes strip material as an input, strip accumulators are often employed to render the process continuous. Thus, a strip accumulator, such as that shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,506,210, receives strip material from an input coil and holds or stores a quantity of the same while at the same time paying out strip so held to the processing line. In this manner when the input coil is depleted the processing line may remain active utilizing strip from the accumulator while the leading edge of a new input coil is being attached to the trailing edge of the depleted coil.
Many strip accumulators utilize a take-out arbor around which the strip travels as it is leaving the accumulator. An example of such an arbor is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,885,748 wherein the arbor is angularly adjustable to maintain the center line of the strip in line with the processing equipment. U.S. Pat. No. 3,885,748 also discloses a plurality of rollers mounted on the arbor forming a helical path for the strip material to pass thereover. The resultant tracking of the strip material is affected by twisting and the angles at which both the arbor and the rollers are mounted. While the device of said patent is entirely acceptable for many widths of strip material, because the rollers are permanently mounted, the angle thereof cannot be adjusted for strip materials of different widths.
Furthermore, the device of U.S. Pat. No. 3,885,748 is limited as to the thickness and physical strength of the strip material with which it may operate. Each idler roller provides some resistance to strip movement as a result of friction between the journal bearing and the axle. Thus, a portion of the force required to pull the strip from the accumulator must be used to overcome this friction. With strips of very low yield strength, the force required to pull the strip around the arbor might well exceed the yield strength of the material. Moreover, these light gauge or soft materials might often be scratched or deformed by contact with the rollers.
Thus, the prior art of which I am aware does not provide a universally acceptable arbor which will handle, without deformation, strip materials of varying widths, hardnesses and physical strengths.